A Failure to Communicate

By Rose Pedenko and Tanya Simon

Conscience will ever judge right when it is rightly informed, and speak the truth when it understands it. -John Leland

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How is the conservative media to be assessed during the recent chaotic Republican Primaries?

This is one question that, if it can be answered honestly, may come to haunt the conservative party throughout the term of the next administration.

We have to admire the mainstream media for their success in convincing voters to support the MSM’s chosen candidates, and in the precise order calculated: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, John Edwards, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney. No psychic could have done it better.

Adding to their efforts were full-throttle boosts by Oprah Winfrey and other Hollywood glitterati for both Clinton and Obama. Their momentum is unstoppable. As we write, the Obama Express has become the runaway bullet train right-wing punditry cannot derail – not because such punditry’s influence has been stopped in its tracks, as liberals would like to believe, but because they didn’t “pour on the steam” and charge full speed ahead with the right candidate when they had the opportunity.

A passionate division has always existed between the Left and the Right. However, in these past eight weeks the evident passion on the part of the liberal media was a 50-block inferno weighed against the conservatives’ weenie roast.

The eleventh-hour (or more specifically, 11:59th hour) support given by Ann Coulter, Dennis Prager, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh and Newt “Johnny Come Never” Gingrich amounted to a minnow’s belch compared to their liberal counterparts’ lion’s roar. It is easier to blame the outcome on straying conservatives than to acknowledge “real” conservatives never strayed to begin with.

After twelve months – one solid year – of campaigning by aspirants of both parties, the best these pundits offered is that they weren’t ready to support anyone? They all, one-by-one, ultimately figured out that Mitt Romney was the best candidate for the job. Had they used their power of persuasion to educate and influence (as they do daily on a host of other topics), the voters would not need to “drag themselves to the polls” as one popular talk show host offered. Instead, there was equivocation, vacillation and just plain jelly-fishing their way through the campaign season. Now they want to blame it on voters. Informed voters did vote for Mitt Romney. If the talk show hosts do not influence thinking, what is the point of filling the airwaves with opinion?

No one, save for Hugh Hewitt of Townhall, William F. Buckley (The National Review) and Tammy Bruce of KABC Talk Radio, took the early plunge and wholly supported who they believed was the right man for the Oval Office. We were glad to hear they had made solid decisions and were not afraid to be wrong. But no matter how hard those particular three tried (and they tried very, very hard on behalf of their chosen contender, Mitt Romney), their enthusiasm was in no way matched by other high-profilers’ fence straddling -- whether it was for Romney or any Republican candidate. Each pundit who waited until it was too late has since proffered a limp explanation as to why he or she withheld support of the best candidate, generally, that none of them were ready to support anyone.

We’re not saying that the existence of the Republican Party or conservative ideals lies on the support of talk radio or cable shows – just as no candidate should rely only on them as a crutch or as their sole source of support. That would be absurd. What we are saying is this: Why was it necessary for them to wait for the realization that the wayward conservative they had worked diligently to demonize would actually end up being the conservative party's nominee? If they are all as clever as they purport to be, this fact – this end result – would have been as evident to them as the sun rising in the east each morning. All of the influence peddlers are now steering us in the direction of “McCain is better than Hillary or Obama.” Jack Kemp has even gone so far as to compare John McCain to Winston Churchill. Someone please give us a break. That’s like saying Lindsay Lohan is the new Garbo. The entire premise that McCain is better than Clinton or Obama is like saying pneumonia is better than malaria or cholera.

At the battle of Gettysburg, a Union officer, Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (a college professor from Maine), was ordered to lead his men up to and hold Little Round Top, a strategic hill on the outskirts of the town. After hours of brutal gunfire and casualties, his unit had exhausted their ammunition – and the Confederates were still closing in on them. Did Chamberlain wait for reinforcements? Did he wait for more ammunition? Did he cut and run? No. He ordered, against all odds, a full bayonet charge against the advancing Rebels. The result was an astonishing victory for him and his men. And for this Col. Chamberlain was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

If he had hesitated, if he had waited, the aftermath might have been disastrous. As it turned out, Chamberlain made the right split-second decision.

That is why we are confounded by the doubt-filled hesitation on the part of conservative media after, as we’ve pointed out, one year of massive amounts of information being literally thrown in our faces.

The fact of the matter is that most people in this country are simply not interested in politics. They passively watch shows like The O’Reilly Factor or listen to talk radio waiting for inspiration and guidance.

Republicans are motivated by logic and Democrats are motivated by emotion. This is evident as Democrats and Independents fall more and more rapidly and in even greater numbers under the spell of Obama’s oratorical but empty prowess – all of which is merrily aided 24/7/365 by the liberal mainstream media.

The final result of all the conservative hemming and hawing is clear and irreversible: We are left with John McCain and Mike Huckabee, a hot head and a preacher who are engaged in a spinster’s race for the altar.